December 2009 April 2009 Feature 6 Failure to launch People 10 Unstoppable Andrea 12 Ryan Hodierne - living the adventure 15 N(aa)t your average fitness trainer 16 Legend: Eileen Pillans 18 Graceful "Swan" 20 Reaching for the Stars High Performance Services 22 Psychology: Improve your performance by discovering yourself 24 Biokinetics: Only as strong as the weakest link 28 Nutrition: Debunking common sport nutrition myths 0 Medical: Stopping Germs at Home, Work and School 2 Sport Science Gym: Old strength training equipment vs the New 4 Physiotherapy: Flexibility Boosts Performance 6 Physiotherapy: The Kinesio Craze 8 Biokinetics: Water Aerobics Sports Law 14 40 SA sport in desperate need of good governance TuksSport Academies 42 Teagan's Tao of Drive TuksSport High School 44 The Assignment TuksSport 46 TuksSport News 48 Inside News 54 From The Sideline Cover Image: Reg Caldecott Medalist 4 Medalist from the CEO’S OFFICE hat has happened to old cliché of sports administrators should not be the ones receiving the accolades and all the • Don’t just tell the people you are one, but television and radio time? It seems as understand that it comes with a set of responsibilities W and accountabilities for the organisation which are if in this day and age it is not about what you can do for the sport, but what the sport can do for you and real and measurable as with any other professional business. how honesty and integrity are words from some ancient pass and do not relate to this day and age. • If thou hast a high profile in the media, thou will act in an objective, dignified way and never embarrass Every sporting administrator around the world has the organisation. Administrators with high media profiles should use the role to benefit the sport as a a responsibility, not only to the sport, but also to all whole and not bring it to its knees. its constituents to ensure that the sport be delivered to everyone in the most professional manner. They • Thou shalt not use thy Administrative/Board powers must realise that they must be held accountable for and influence to get special inside deals for thy friends and family. mismanagement, not only of the funds, but also of the basic rules of Corporate Governance. They cannot • Thou shalt embrace the same standards and rules go around lying to the general public, and to all and as embraced and lived by the players, coaches and sundry, and hope that they will get away with it. staff. • Thou shall accept that there is only one team – one Similarly it is also the role of the media to ensure that vision – one set of rules for all in the organisation. there is balanced reporting and that each respective case receives the good publicity when it is due and These are only some of the basic commandments as similarly receives the bad publicity when those expressed by Wayne Goldsmith of Sports Coaching associated with the sport step out of line. Having Brain in his article titled “Boards and Sporting recently been exposed to the good and the bad of Organisations – the ten basic commandments of being media reporting over the past few months, I am once a great Board member.” again being brought down to earth with the realisation that it is not the balanced reporting that we would like Let’s hope that the days of reading about great to see that sells newspapers, but rather about “how performances will soon grace the pages of the various many newspapers we can sell” irrespective of the tabloids once again and that we will not have to read validity of the report. about the goings on and politics of the various sporting administrators on such a regular basis Getting back to the administrators there are a number of basic “commandments” that they should adopt as their driving ethics and standards if they are to represent the sport at the highest level, and they are: • Thou shalt accept the full responsibility and accountability of the role of a sports administrator. Medalist 5 Feature / Text: James R Clark, Department Biokinetics, Sport & Leisure Sciences Institute for Sport Research, University of Pretoria hy do South African athletes seem to disappoint so frequently at international competitions? was the question I was Wasked. Of course, I had heard this one before - colleagues and I frequently debate the issue over a few cold ones or, more likely, following yet another suitably forgettable performance of a South African outfit on the world stage. The question comes more than a year after the still painful results of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games which haunt the South African sporting fraternity sufficiently to encourage some frenzied activity at various levels in an attempt to avoid a repeat of that performance. As the sport scientist to a national federation with Olympic ambitions, the issue is an important one to me, with real-world implications for the preparation and performance of my athletes. The frequent labelling of South African athletes as ‘chokers’ sprung to mind as soon as the topic was presented to me. Sports-nutty South African supporters seem to harbour a perverse love of crucifying our national representatives when they fail to deliver all but the highest honours on the international stage. But is this ‘choking’ label warranted? Do South Africans have a problem with international or overseas competition? To my dismay the answer was a resounding “yes!” from the vast majority of those I cornered on the issue. Granted, my convenience sample of twenty or so friends and colleagues limits this as a scientific exercise, but I’ll put my head on a block and venture that this reflects the general consensus amongst the South African public. While several notable international successes in swimming, athletics, golf, rugby and cricket are by no means forgotten, most people I interrogated believed that when our athletes reach the international stage, the performances witnessed are not congruent with the perceived athlete capability or public 6 Medalist / Feature expectation. What about the numbers? As a scientist, I want proof. Since the Beijing debacle clearly added significant weight to this public perception, the Olympic Games seemed like a good place to search for any truth in this perception. The Olympic Games remains the ultimate international stage for athletes in 28 sports (at the 2008 Beijing Games) and winning an Olympic medal remains the pinnacle of performance in these codes. The Games also allow comparisons between nations’ performances - most readers should be familiar with the so-called medals-per-capita comparisons which describe the number of medals a nation wins compared to the population of that country. These have been used in describing sporting prowess, spending and chances of success in various countries. I’ve used an alternative comparison here – how many medals have been won (success) compared to the number of competitors (participation) sent to the Games. Specifically, I looked at the results since South Africa’s resumption of Olympic competition in Barcelona in 1992, spanning five Games, Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008. The results are shown in the accompanying table. Number of competitors and medals of selected countries at the Summer Olympic Games from Barcelona 1992 to Beijing 2008 NATION COMPETITORS MEDALS RATIO ETH 151 28 5.4 CHN 1855 326 5.7 USA 3095 512 6.0 JAM 231 33 7.0 AUS 2259 221 10.2 GBR 1595 140 11.4 BRA 1152 55 20.9 RSA 566 19 29.8 This comparison yields a ‘success ratio’. For example, one in seven athletes Jamaica sends to the Games are likely to win a medal. The table is not extensive; instead I’ve included the traditional ‘big-guns’ like USA, Great Britain and Australia, and also socioeconomic contemporaries of South Africa like Jamaica, Brazil and Ethiopia. The result should not come as any surprise to the South African public – we need almost thirty athletes to ensure a single Olympic medal, one of the worst performers at the Games in this regard. Sure, this exercise is limited: ignoring our (somewhat successful) professional and non-Olympic sporting codes is one; using a single four-yearly event is another; unique factors related to South African team selection is a third; but as the world’s sporting showpiece these are arguably the same factors which support such a comparison in assessing whether athletes deemed ‘good enough’ for international competition go on to international success. And I’d venture Medalist 7 Feature / a guess that even if one tracked the more ‘fair’ particularly in golf, athletics, rugby and cricket ratio of personal best performances to number of attests to the fact that South African athletes are competitors at the Games, South African athletes not physically less capable or talented than their would still not be among the stand-out nations. international opponents. While certain human population may be better suited to particular So it does appear there is a problem. Why? activities, there is no evidence that South Africa is Answering this part of the question led me to populated by a diverse assortment of uncoordinated assemble the opinions of some people in the know and physically inferior misfits. On the contrary, our - insiders to the world of high performance sport diversity may be an asset. rather than simply members of the public. These included athletes, coaches, trainers and sport Inappropriate Public Expectations. scientists. Here are some options. The argument that the South African public is overly Insufficient Finances and/or Infrastructure. demanding of victory and intolerant of failure is an attractive one.